Walden Street Cattle Pass

	Walden Street Cattle Pass
	U.S. National Register of Historic Places
	Usually nearly concealed under the Walden Street Bridge, the tunnel is seen here exposed during 2007-08 bridge reconstruction work.
Location	Cambridge, Massachusetts
Coordinates	42°23′21.9″N 71°7′28.8″W / 42.389417°N 71.124667°W
Built	1857
MPS	Cambridge MRA
NRHP reference No.	94000554
Added to NRHP	June 3, 1994

The Walden Street Cattle Pass, also referred to as the cow path,^[2] is an historic site adjacent to the MBTA Commuter Rail Fitchburg Line right-of-way, under the Walden Street Bridge in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.

The site, a tunnel for moving cattle between the railroad and the nearby stockyards of the 19th century, was built in 1857. The cattle yards were closed in 1868^[3] or "about 1871",^[4] but the cattle trade continued; "until the 1920s, cows were unloaded here and driven down Massachusetts Avenue, through Harvard Square, and across the river to the Brighton Abattoir".^[4]

Restoration (re-pointing) of the tunnel's brickwork was carried out during the 2007–08 replacement of the second-generation bridge dating from 1914.^[2]^[5] The third-generation bridge opened for traffic in December 2008. The Cambridge City Council discussed creation of a vantage point for viewing the tunnel, ca. 2008, but no action was taken.

References

^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. April 15, 2008.
^ ^a ^b Walden Street Bridge, Cambridge Department of Public Works Archived 2009-07-05 at the Wayback Machine
^ Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge: Northwest Cambridge, 1977, ISBN 0-262-53032-5, Cambridge Historical Commission, Cambridge, Mass., p. 42
^ ^a ^b "Cambridge Cattle Market", in Cambridge Historical Commission-North Cambridge Stabilization Committee report, 2002
^ Yelton, Rick. "Bridging the Gap: Passing on tradition". Masonry Construction Magazine. pp. 2 & 3. Archived from the original on 14 July 2011. Retrieved 9 February 2010.